I may be opening a can of trolls on this one, but in all honesty I want to hear what others think BEFORE a tidal wave of D3 information hits on Aug 1.***

This vaguely falls in line with what I do for a career, and with a monolithic beast like Blizzard, I think it's important to monitor people's reactions to how they handle the public before release. Also, I think it is safe to say that the Public Relations before the release of D2 was a completely different experience than the PR of D3. With D2 they were constantly shooting out new information. With D3, Bashiok and Co. are holding all the cards close to their chest.

So, based on how Blizzard PR has handled D3 for the last 3 years, how would you grade the experience, on a scale of A - B - C - D - F (+/-) ?
*** May not get tidal wave of information

I agree on giving them a D. They haven't completely ignored their fans but it's pretty much 1 step above being ignored.

The thing is I always expected it to be a slow burn that would really ramp up in the last year of development as things started to fall into place. That's just not what we're seeing. Either things haven't fallen into place by this point or they just don't care about telling us anything. Either option is not good.

Real poopy! But in their defense,I can understand how it would be annoying to show some of the game, and then make changes, and get b!tched at because people can't handle change at every step of the way.

I'm still hoping that the steady stream of information we have been expecting will start at the press event and sort of continue. At least at a greater pace than it has previously.

Real poopy! But in their defense,I can understand how it would be annoying to show some of the game, and then make changes, and get b!tched at because people can't handle change at every step of the way.

I'm still hoping that the steady stream of information we have been expecting will start at the press event and sort of continue. At least at a greater pace than it has previously.

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ye i kinda agree the best course of action would have been to reveal diablo 3 1-2 years later than they had ... first they teased us into frenzy and than they let us literally starve.

thats the equivalent of a parent who lets his kid look and shake the the giftbox at christmas eve and than locks the gifts away until new year.

I dont really know how to Grade this one because there has been a Metric Poop Ton of information released on the game. Entire Wikis and Websites put together describing almost every aspect of the game are available to us, before the game was even out. We have gotten a few cool updates with the release of the Demon Hunter and the Skill Rune Graphics. It seems like everyone wants to know every aspect about the game before it's released. I think that's kind of dumb. Do you look up how a Movie ends before you go see it in the theater? Me either.

Me personally, I would rather have information released on the game involving Mechanics more than flashy previews and MASSIVE gameplay footage. I like the occasional Gameplay footage here and there, but I also want to be surprised and amazed when I finally do play it.

They are keeping us in the dark for a reason, folks. They don't want to spoil the rest of the game that has yet to be released to the public; why? Because the game has yet to be released to the public. My final Grade based on all that, in all honestly, would be a "B"

I venture to guess that Blizz slowed down their updates about the details of D3 because they were getting worried about other games stealing their ideas and beating Blizzard to the punch. For a while (over a year ago) the updates came in fairly steadily (Hey, new class! Hey there will be artisans (no, not arteeeeesians - sorry Flux ) Here's some screenshots, some artwork. Hey this is how we plan to implement mechanic "X" etc etc...). But then again, Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile are *really* looking good and are in direct competition with Diablo 3. Once blizzard publishes their official plans on how to implement an Auction House / Trading system, TL2 and PoE will start responding to it and potential stealing the idea or even improving upon it). Once blizz reveals how they plan to implement guild/clan support - again games like TL2 and PoE have the opportunity to steal and/or improve the idea. So I think that's when blizz realized - hey, we're slow on getting our games out because they are uber polished and very high quality. Runic Games and GGG - who knows if they will beat our release date - and if they have too many of our features in-game, then why choose D3?

So - to a degree, i'm Ok with blizz being a bit more hush-hush lately. They have said all their major mechanics will be talked about before the beta. So, we just need to exercise a bit more patience.

I dont really know how to Grade this one because there has been a Metric Poop Ton of information released on the game. Entire Wikis and Websites put together describing almost every aspect of the game are available to us, before the game was even out. We have gotten a few cool updates with the release of the Demon Hunter and the Skill Rune Graphics. It seems like everyone wants to know every aspect about the game before it's released. I think that's kind of dumb. Do you look up how a Movie ends before you go see it in the theater? Me either.

Me personally, I would rather have information released on the game involving Mechanics more than flashy previews and MASSIVE gameplay footage. I like the occasional Gameplay footage here and there, but I also want to be surprised and amazed when I finally do play it.

They are keeping us in the dark for a reason, folks. They don't want to spoil the rest of the game that has yet to be released to the public; why? Because the game has yet to be released to the public. My final Grade based on all that, in all honestly, would be a "B"

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You don't have to read what they reveal if you don't want to be spoiled about the gameplay. They haven't revealed jack about the plot. So, there's pretty much zero spoilers there. I'm not really worried about being spoiled about the character classes and skills, etc. That just helps people make an informed decision about whether the game sounds like fun or not.

I venture to guess that Blizz slowed down their updates about the details of D3 because they were getting worried about other games stealing their ideas and beating Blizzard to the punch. For a while (over a year ago) the updates came in fairly steadily (Hey, new class! Hey there will be artisans (no, not arteeeeesians - sorry Flux ) Here's some screenshots, some artwork. Hey this is how we plan to implement mechanic "X" etc etc...). But then again, Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile are *really* looking good and are in direct competition with Diablo 3. Once blizzard publishes their official plans on how to implement an Auction House / Trading system, TL2 and PoE will start responding to it and potential stealing the idea or even improving upon it). Once blizz reveals how they plan to implement guild/clan support - again games like TL2 and PoE have the opportunity to steal and/or improve the idea. So I think that's when blizz realized - hey, we're slow on getting our games out because they are uber polished and very high quality. Runic Games and GGG - who knows if they will beat our release date - and if they have too many of our features in-game, then why choose D3?

So - to a degree, i'm Ok with blizz being a bit more hush-hush lately. They have said all their major mechanics will be talked about before the beta. So, we just need to exercise a bit more patience.

For once, I agree completely with Valgore. I would give them a B only because of questionable announcement-development timing. I already know alot more about the game than I wish I did before having played it..(I wish we didn't know most of the skills in the game before even the beta).. but since its been so long since it was announced, I soak up every drop of possibly new info because I'm addicted now

But part of the enjoyment of the entire D3 game has been extinguished, because we already know so much and we keep wanting more and then when we get something, everything previous becomes old news (before the game is even done, let alone released).

While I more or less agree with the average ratings here, they're beside the point, since we (people who care enough to register and post on a fansite forum) are not the target of Blizzard's D3 PR.

We've all complained about their twitter, and their FB, and their lack of website updates, and Bashiok's very sporadic (at best) forum posting, etc. People say it's almost as if Blizzard doesn't care about keeping the "Diablo community" entertained/occupied, and are only interested in trying to keep the game in the attention of casuals.

Yes. What part of that didn't you understand? Yes, that's their goal. They know we are hooked already, so they don't spend anything other than very part time work from Bashiok on us.

This, I think, explains why we see big D3 news 3 or 4x a year. Blizzcon, Gamescom, and one or two other interview bursts, where they give like 6 media outlets an interview on the same day, timed to go live with new media content. The male Demon Hunter reveal, the female Monk reveal, Followers, etc.

Such blizzards of new content all at once are wasted on people reading this thread. We'd much prefer an interview a month, with new info in each one, rather than 6 interviews at once all covering the same topic. But by these info dumps, Blizzard assures that their new whatever gets saturation coverage, and that casuals can't help but catch some awareness of it.

They'll begin heavily promoting D3 during the last 2 or 3 months of the beta starts. Then we'll see magazine ads, TV spots, new interviews all the time, a ton of coverage at Blizzcon in October, etc, all leading up to the launch in Dec-Feb-ish. And that PR will be designed to catch as many eyes as possible, and get casual fans, WoW players, etc, all interested in D3.

None of it will be targeted at us, though we'll obviously enjoy the glut of content. Since Bliz PR's D3 efforts aren't intended to entertain or enlighten the hardcore fans. I think they've made that abundantly clear over the past 3 years?

Which is why people reading this forum give them a D. Since they're not trying to impress us. They don't have to.

Smaller games need to focus their coverage on niche audiences, and cater to them and work hard to keep them involved. Blizzard doesn't make niche titles. They're looking to sell many millions of copies of D3. If they were doing stuff that we'd like; say a screenshot of the week or Bashiok actually answering questions more than twice a month... what would that change? Would all of us buy 5 copies of the game instead of just one?

what would that change? Would all of us buy 5 copies of the game instead of just one?

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There would be more QQing on the forums, for one. I haven't kept statistics, but I am fairly certain that literally every piece of information released about Diablo 3 had a controversy thread dedicated to it.

But, more on the topic, every major developer gets people complaining about lack of information prior to the release of the game. Personally, it stopped bothering me years ago. The main communication problems I see from developers nowadays are generally not from PR, but from developers themselves in the game itself - people are forced to run experiments just to find out the basic numbers behind gameplay elements all the damn time.

Smaller games need to focus their coverage on niche audiences, and cater to them and work hard to keep them involved. Blizzard doesn't make niche titles. They're looking to sell many millions of copies of D3. If they were doing stuff that we'd like; say a screenshot of the week or Bashiok actually answering questions more than twice a month... what would that change? Would all of us buy 5 copies of the game instead of just one?

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I plan on buying at least 5 copies... this is my retirement fund here. I have original unopened Diablo, Diablo 2, D2LoD, and soon Diablo 3. By the time I'm ready to clock out of work for good, these puppies will be super rare and expensive and I'm buying a yacht

This is the problem with announcing games way too early. I'm sure anyone can look back and see we have had a decent amount of info released on the game but that is over a 3 years span and fastly closing on year 4. Who really remembers half the stuff that was announced 3-4 years ago ? Alot of us would have to look back on the wiki to refresh our memories.

I know people are whining because they don't know everything about the game but the fact is there are still many systems that haven't reached their final iteration and to show them in the planning stage would be kind of pointless and ultimately lead to disappointment among fans. They, of course, do not want to let anything go about the Lore either because that would ruin the first play-through.

They have stated on numerous occasions that they are being very careful to make that first play through special. In a time where movie trailers show the entire plot line and game developers come out with the ending 2 months before a release date I kind of applaud that.

However, I do think that they could have expanded more on character skills and certain systems but we're going to get all that and more on August 1st.

Very good post by the way, Flux. Think you firmly hit the nail on the head with that one.